Dispatches from the 10th Crusade

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Thanks for the link, Steve. However, the snopes writer--assuming she is correct about the Einstein story (and I have no reason to doubt that she is correct)--is deeply mistaken about the relationship between faith and reason in the Christian tradition. Like many such commentaries, this one treats "religion" in the wholesale when in fact people believe it in the retail. That is, I do not believe in "religion." I believe in Jesus of Nazareth and all that he teaches entails for the good, the true, and the beautiful. As long as the discussion of faith and reason remains highly abstracted and not concerned with particular theological claims and their philosophical entailments, it's relatively easy for people to opine in an apparently high-minded fashion. Because much of our culture has accepted the mistaken view of what Martha Nussbaum calls "religious equality," its members cannot often bring themselves to think of religious claims as they do of claims found in the disciplines of history, chemistry, or even philosophy.

I think the truth is that science has not destroyed religion, it has destroyed authentic philosophy. Empirical science, as touted by such men as Dawkins and others, is not treated as a specific type of knowledge that pertains to a specific type of existence (i.e. material). It is now the only real knowledge. Everything else is doubtful or subjective because it is outside the sensible and therefore testable. This arrogance of empirical science, though, will never really eliminate religion, but what it can in fact do is convince people that religion, because it is not empirical science, is obviously doubtful and ultimately subjective. The "war" between science and religion is thus perpetuated by the conjoined ignorance of both the scientist and the faithful. They both shake hands and agree that there is an infinitely wide chasm between them, and then proceed to duel using completely incommensurable premises.

The only bridge that can be built between the faithful and the scientist is philosophy as practiced in the Western tradition (Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas etc.). It is the only thing that can force empirical science back to its rightful and relatively low place within the order of knowledge.

Spot on Ed (the Lesser)!!! that exactly the point made by the Feyzer in the TLS, the reason that science was able to 'supposedly' get a stranglehold on truth was that Decarte (in particular), Locke et al tried to write off the ancients and scholastics, sadly most of humanity has brought this bait and switch, therefore informing people why the moderns were wrong should be the prime aim of Christian Philosophers today

"Empirical science, as touted by such men as Dawkins and others, is not treated as a specific type of knowledge that pertains to a specific type of existence (i.e. material). It is now the only real knowledge. Everything else is doubtful or subjective because it is outside the sensible and therefore testable."

As psychology has advanced and become more "respectable" among the natural sciences, it has put the last nail in the coffin from within, as modern cosmology and physics has done the same from without -- thus effectively sealing all of reality off from all existential questions that would point towards a beyond of thingly reality. Of course, reasonable human beings don't have to do this and can continue to breathe and wonder and ask the ultimate questions without demanding the apodictic assuagement of intramundane answers; though the surrounding culture does tend to make that more difficult. And for sociopolitical reasons as well as psychological deficits, some Westerners will seek their existential release in Islam, if all the West offers them are opaque and ossified symbolizations in the religious department; increasingly bankrupt and lackluster "New Age" "spirituality"; or a materialistic atheism that interdicts their existential needs.

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